Friday, May 16, 2008

For those of you who get disgusted easily, it's time to navigate away from the page.

Because this girl has a new, sick hobby!!

Before I tell you about it - oooh I'm so excited - some backstory:

So a few weeks ago, R. and I think something died underneath our house. We live near a creek. Critters run up and down our street every day. Get over it. Anyway, the smell was something awful in our kitchen - like, oh my God, I'm not sure I want to eat in my home ever again if it involves stepping foot into this rank room. This den of suffering. This assault on my nostrils. You get the idea.

Fortunately, the smell just lasted a week, when I began to notice - larvae? - crawling on the kitchen floor, near the door that leads outside. I didn't know what they were, exactly - some new weird bug? That wants to get in? Keep dreaming! They were tiny and just inching along, so I smushed them and promptly put them in the trash, in with the more civil trash, like coffee grounds and cereal boxes. But it gets better.

Last week, R. and I began to notice flies everywhere in the kitchen. At first I got really saddened by it - am I that royally undomestic in my first year of marriage? I've let my home decline into a fly feeding frenzy? But then R. - who is much more scientifically-minded than I - reminded me that there had been larvae, and now therewereflies, so this was probably the cycle of life going on underneath our house. I think it goes like this:

Adult flies eat carcus --> Get so excited that they have to lay some eggs while eating --> Baby flies i.e. LARVAE hatch --> New "teenager" flies enter my kitchen looking for food.

A rough theory, but I think that's basically it.

And I'm still not done!

So, flies swarming around the kitchen, and for some reason these flies are really dumb. I've basically been walking up to them with a paper towel and sort of placing it over them and pressing. No "swatting" involved, more like "gently squeezing." Sometimes they just give up and die on the floor. "I'm so dumb and don't know how to get myself out of this situation!" It was getting really gross and a little depressing, seeing dead flies everywhere. But yesterday, R. had a brilliant idea!

I came home to see the vacuum cleaner plugged in near the kitchen counter, with the long, cylindrical, tube-like attachments all hooked up. I knew what was coming. R. virtually squeals, "you're gonna LOVE this!" turns the vacuum cleaner on, and points the sucking tube at the helpless, dumb, buzzing-around flies.

And...away they go! Shwoop, down the vacuum cleaner! Some of them fly out of the way in time, but honestly, they don't stand a chance against the Euro Pro Shark Pursuit 12 amp. (Yes, my vacuum cleaner is inexplicably called "The Shark Pursuit." You know, when sharks get in the carpet.)

So today, when I got home from work, I went for it in the kitchen. I was ruthless. Fly-blood-thirsty. I've never been a video game player, but I totally see the appeal now: I could virtually hear myself getting points every time I sucked up another ugly fly. Ding! 10 points! Ding ding!! I didn't want to stop!

It was so addicting, I sucked them all up. In about 5 minutes. And guys, not to gross you out, but there must have been about 30 flying around when I started. In my mind that equals 300 points.

It's the first time I've been excited - nay, giddy - about flies.

**Edited to add:** R. just said we should kill a person and put their dead body under the house, so we'd have a ton of flies. Told you we were sick.